“91771”

As bassist for the iconic Athens, Georgia doom metal quintet Harvey Milk, Stephen Tanner has spent a good portion of his adult life wringing plodding and desolate tunes out of his downtrodden psyche. His first solo release as Music Blues explores a similarly bleak headspace. "91771", the opening track from the forthcoming Things Haven't Gone Well, offers the same funereal guitar and booming basslines as the project for which he's best known. But here, Tanner wipes away any semblance of humanity in favor of glorious, if greyscale, melodrama.

Though just over two minutes long, the quivering feedback and nauseating dynamic peaks are a grim tease of the record that follows—a concept album of sorts about the depression and despondency that's marked Tanner's life. September 17, 1971 was the day Tanner was born, and by the sounds of "91771", he seems to view the event as ominous rather than celebratory.